Labyrinths & Constellations 1984-87

The least site and culture specific, this work explores myth as an important locus for establishing identity. It combined palladium (and a few color) prints on shaped steel frames. Cold steel and warm palladium mirror the impossible union of opposites that is present in any potent myth or ritual, just as it appears in the chrome and velvet of lowrider cruisers.

I wanted to make images that would recreate the experience of trying to become whole. The Labyrinth was constructed to house or hide that unnatural union of woman and beast — the Minotaur. This poor and blessed beast, depending on how you looked at it, seemed a mirror of us all: torn in opposite directions, wild and tame, civilized and not. Palladium and steel — the most refined, warm, elegant of photographic processes and the dirtiest, grittiest and rawest of metals — mirror the impossible union of opposites. At first I thought the Labyrinth was a prison but in making these pictures, I’ve learned it is a place of discovery. The whole self is all of the fragments.